Tarkovksy’s ‘Mirror’ won’t leave me alone, images unendurably sad. For minutes I can’t be held to account. Email can’t reach me, devices go blank. The rain outside a tautology. My shit stinks and I do not want to die yet immortality is not my thing. The dog in sorrow nuzzles a ball whose deflation is irresistible. My son stirs in his sleep clasped to my arm. My daughter’s silence, symbolism’s shame. My wife drives alone through a northern night, and sometimes when I’m coming home from work, bundles of mist suspended like pale fish in waters implausibly dark and clear are snagged in the lure of my light and drown. If I am not able, if I am not able, if I am not able to put in words all that you recount of that gay siege that childhood laid at your pantry door forgive me, I do not take dictation. As I read my lips are seen to move, as I move my limbs are dangled on a string. I wonder what’s on breath’s nether side? A gravel